Dear Mary I

I want to experience moments of ecstasy without actually taking ecstasy.

And where is that golden land of balance between intimacy and solitude? I know the dark pangs you describe. They are sharper than the sharpest thing. I hope the remedy is that love and beauty you describe. When love and beauty and satisfaction become life rather than just a part of it… I think these pangs disappear. Lately and maybe forever I crave being alone. There is stimulation here, in the newness. My mind needs quiet spaces. I dream of still gardens and mango lassis. You are in my heart.

Paradise but not

There have been many times that
Thailand fit the bill of heaven.

A third world above our own!
Paradise in a visual sense!
And in matters of the heart!

But
there is cruelty everywhere
no matter the beauty.

Our insecurities grow the teeth
that rip into peace.
 

Two buffalo walking in the grass

Sitting on the porch with a bowl of papaya, I observe the water buffalo standing lazily in my neighbor's yard. Two are always tied together. And so they have to cooperate to get anywhere. Sometimes one will try to walk but the other one does not move and it becomes a stand still.

I remember playing a game like this with my sister using a jump rope.

Tied to each other and walking harmoniously until

as a joke

one sister stops in her tracks

jolting the other

and we both laugh.